Spider-Man

I haul a massive brick off the shelf today, but before I open it I go off on a long tangent about one of my favorite characters – Moon Knight! Then, it’s time to dig into the books – but, just half of them, since it was a seven-book stack!

On today’s episode of Crushing Comics I unveiled the first international comics haul of new comics collected editions that’s arrived since I’ve been here in New Zealand! I don’t know how I made it this long without a fresh supply of books (and hopefully not any spiders).

Here’s what I unboxed in alphabetical order, along with their accompanying guides (if applicable):

J. Michael Straczynski – commonly known to fans as JMS – is a famed author across multiple mediums. After cutting his teeth on a number of early-80s children’s cartoons, he broke out in 1993 with syndicated sci-fi hit Bablyon 5 – an epic and nuanced take on similar subject-matter to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He also made his entrance into the comics world in the 90s with his creator-owned book Rising Stars.

As you can imagine, fans were excited for him to take over Amazing Spider-Man in 2001 after a few years’ dip in quality of the Spidey flagship – especially as accompanied by classic Marvel artist John Romita, Jr.

Past Ranking: This book ranked #30 in 2014 and just missed the survey in 2016, coming in somewhere between #51-56

Probable Contents: Amazing Spider-Man (1999) #30-58 and 500-508 (though it could stretch as far as #518)

JMS’s run on Spider-Man accounts for 87 issues as gathered in his five-volume Ultimate Collection set, which means we’d be looking at either two hefty 40+ issue volumes or three slimmer 30-ish issue volumes to cover it.

I’m speculating on the former, which would leave a second volume to collect Amazing Spider-Man #509-545, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (2005) #1-4 & 24, Marvel Knights Spider-Man (2004) #19-22, The Sensational Spider-Man (2006) #41, and Spider-Man: The Other (2005) Sketchbook, and Spider-Man: One More Day Sketchbook (2007).

Creators: J. Michael Straczynski & John Romita, Jr. handle the entirety of the run through #508 with few interlopers; #508 is the end of Romita’s run.

Can you read it right now? Yes! This run has been collected in several formats, including oversized hardcover. Head to The Guide to Spider-Man for details. It’s also available in full on Marvel Unlimited.

The Details:

Spider-Man was on a major high when J. Michael Straczinski took the reigns of his flagship comic in June 2001, but not for the reasons you might think.

Amazing Spider-Man was one of the last Silver Age comics that Marvel relaunched in the late 90s, leaving only Uncanny X-Men to continue its original numbering into the new millennium. Amazing and its sister titles started with a flash with John Byrne co-scripting and pencilling, but faded afterwards during what was a massive overall fade for the comic industry a the time.

At the end of 2017 Dan Slott will have been writing Peter Parker as Spider-Man for ten years, but his most-memorable Spider-Man story will probably go down as Superior Spider-Man – the one where he wrote Spider-Man not as Peter Parker … or, maybe more accurately, Peter Parker not as himself.

(Note that Superior Spider-Man #32-33 were published later as part of Spider-Verse.)

Creators: Written by Dan Slott with Christos Gage with pencils by the rotating team of Giuseppe Camuncoli, Ryan Stegman, and Humberto Ramos (along with one-offs from Marcos Martin, Javier Rodriguez, Phil Briones, and Will Sliney).

Inks by the pencillers along with John Dell III, Victor Olazaba, Cam Smith, Terry Pallot, John Livesay, and Álvaro López. Colors by Edgar Delgado and Antonio Fabela.

What Is It? In January 2008 Marvel collapsed their line of several Spider-Man titles down to just Amazing Spider-Man, which accelerated to releasing three issues a month from a rotating cast of writers starting with #546. This coincided with a minor reset of some details of Spider-Man’s continuity – more on that below.

While the story arc “Brand New Day” ran from #546 to 564, the title is commonly used to refer to the entire period of accelerated schedule with multiple writers, which ran through #647 in December 2010 – three entire years comprised of 102 issues of Amazing Spider-Man!

Past Ranking: This year is the book’s debut placement in the ballot results.

Creators: Many!

The rotating writers considered to be Spider-Man’s steering brain-trust consistently including Dan Slott, Marc Guggenheim, Bob Gale, and Zeb Wells – though others like Mark Waid and Joe Kelly also contributed arcs in this period.

For a full map of how the Brand New Day period could fit into omnibus volumes, see the end of this post.

Can you read it right now? Yes! Marvel has begun to recollect Big Time in a series of Complete Collections. A first omnibus probably wouldn’t cover all three collections. See the Guide to Spider-Man for full physical collecting info.

Plus, every one of these issues is available on Marvel Unlimited!

The Details:

To talk about this run, we have to first talk about the story that immediately precedes it – “One More Day.”

“One More Day” is one of the most-hated Spider-Man stories of all time, neck-and-neck with its later sequel “One Moment In Time.”

Fans tend to dislike any revisions to their favorite elements of continuity, but this one was particularly egregious – not only breaking up Spider-Man and Mary Jane, but retroactively causing their marriage to cease to exist due to a very out-of-character deal with a literal devil. Their relationship and all of their stories continued to exist – just not their marriage.

This is the final post in our series time-traveling backwards through Marvel’s era of comic books to see what books would make fantastic omnibuses, and this is a big one – it’s what I’m calling “The Masterworks Era.”

What exactly is “The Masterworks Era,” aside from something I just made up? It refers to the period of comcis that Marvel has covered with their deluxe, standard-size hardcover Marvel Masterworks reprint line. The Silver Age portion of the line begins with Fantastic Four #1 in 1961.

The end is a little fuzzier. The Silver Age is understood to end in 1970-71, but with a handful of exceptions Marvel has already pushed past that point with every line of Masterworks collections. In fact, their newest two Masterworks lines are The Spectacular Spider-Man (1976), Spider-Woman (1978), and The Savage She-Hulk (1980)!

Yes, that’s right – Masterworks now cover comics that began in the 1980s! That’s like when the oldies station of my youth started playing Madonna songs. Plus, the farthest outlier, Uncanny X-Men, has reached all the way up to issue #188 in 1984.

When it comes to classic Omnibuses, until this year Marvel followed a specific formula almost every time – one omnibus contained three Masterworks volumes. We’re now seeing them deviate from that formula with Amazing Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Thor, all of which contained more than the customary three volumes.

To figure out what comics are due for potential omnibuses to feature in this post, I had to first figure out both what has been covered by Masterworks volumes and what has been skipped! That’s not really a part of this discussion, but if you’re interested, I’ve shown my work.

Shanna, the She-Devil (1972), collected in the Women of Marvel Omnibus

Supernatural Thrillers (1972), a horror anthology; this has never been reprinted fully in color.

Tomb of Dracula (1972) and Dracula Lives (1973) – This has been reprinted in Omnibus, but could still be Masterworked

Frankenstein (1973) – Collected in color in TPB and is too brief for an omnibus

Vampire Tales (1973) – An anthology series featuring Blade and Morbius. This has been collected in TPB and could be Masterworked, but it’s too short to be an omnibus without including other material.

Haunt of Horror (1974), which included Satana stories

Master of Kung Fu (1974) and The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu (1974) – Collected in Omnibus but not Masterworked.

Man-Thing (1974 / 1979) – Collected in both an omnibus and a Complete Collection line, but not Masterworked.

The Invaders (1975) – Collected in a pair of Complete Collections, and previously in Classics; could still be Omnibused – listed below.

Marvel Chillers (1975), an anthology series featuring:

Modred the Mystic, not collected

Tigra, not collected

Marvel Presents (1975), an anthology series featuring:

Bloodstone, not collected

Guardians of the Galaxy, which has been collected in omnibus and could conceivably hit Masterworks

Super-Villain Team-Up (1975) – Collected in a single Complete Collection; too short for omnibus, but could appear in a Namor omnibus line.

Captain Britain (1976) – Collected entirely in a pair of OHCs; could still be Masterworked, but an omnibus would be redundant since there’s nothing left to add.

The Eternals (1976) – Collected in one of Marvel’s early omnibuses; could still be Masterworked

Howard the Duck (1976 / 1979) – Collected in both an omnibus and a Complete Collection line; could still be Masterworked

Nova (1976) – Collected completely in a paperback Classic line, but not omnibus or Masterworks – so it’s covered below!

Omega the Unknown (1976) – Too short to be an omnibus; has been collected in TPB, but could be Masterworked

What If? (1977) – Collected in a paperback Classics line, but not in omnibus – so it’s covered below!

Devil Dinosaur (1978) – Previously collected in omnibus, and recently in paperback; could be Masterworked!

Machine Man (1978) – Collected in a single TPB in 2016 and has previously appeared on the survey; however, without the rights to reprint 2001: A Space Odyssey material Marvel likely can’t expand this to an omnibus.

Amazing Adventures (1979), an anthology series which branches to:

Inhumans content in their MMW line; could be omnibused

Beast content in the X-Men MMW line; could be omnibused

Killraven, which has not been reprinted in color and could be omnibused

Marvel Spotlight (1979), an anthology series which branches to:

the final volume of the Captain Marvel MMW line

A handful of Dragon-Lord stories, uncollected

Star-Lord, collected variously with Guardians of the Galaxy (including in Omnibus)

Captain Universe, as a spin-off from Micronauts, collected in Captain Universe: Power Unimaginable; not enough material for ominbus

This list omits Western titles like Tex Dawson, Gunslinger (1973), Gun-Slinger (1973), and Gunhawks (1972) and licensed material Marvel can’t Masterwork, including Conan, Doc Savage, Godzilla, The Human Fly, John Carter, Kull, Micronauts, Planet of the Apes, Red Sonja (in her own title and in Marvel Feature (1975), Shogun Warriors, Star Trek, Tarzan, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and The Wizard of Oz (based on the film).

How am I defining “due” here? It’s any superhero universe series that the Masterworks line has skipped entirely or any Masterworks line with three or more un-omnibused volumes.

Any comic with a Masterworks line that’s in-progress with only one or two volumes is not included: Ka-Zar, Luke Cage, Marvel Team-Up, Marvel Two-in-One, Not Brand Echh Vol. 1, Rarities Vol. 1, Rawhide Kid, She-Hulk, Spectacular Spider-Man, Spider-Woman.

I also didn’t include the one-and-done Masterworks volumes Champions and Deathlok as potential omnibuses, since the omnibus would be the same as the Masterworks!

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